“…The exceptional photophysical properties of rhodamines can be complemented with the introduction of receptors, such as 3-hydroxy-4-pyridinone (3,4-HPO) units, allowing the optical detection of several species, namely M(II) and M(III) metal ions [ 15 ]. Indeed, 3,4-HPOs are an important class of N -heterocyclic bidentate ligands, whose use has been widely explored as specific and selective chelators towards environmentally and biologically relevant metals, specially Al 3+ and Fe 3+ [ 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ]. In this context, the functionalization at the benzoate ring of rhodamine with 3,4-HPO chelating units is being approached as a very promising and useful methodology to obtain fluorescent probes, which can be used in the detection and quantification of such metal ions [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ].…”